Deluxe Granite was first suggested to us by a potential contractor. We were intimidated by the name "Deluxe Granite" that sounded "expensive". We spent more than a month shopping around, and ended up no less confused than when we started. Some stores price granite on a fixed scale by grades. Others refuse to price the granite unless we identify "the one" or at least narrow it down to one or two. Some only price the granite for fabricator. That didn't work for us, as we were neither fixed budget shoppers, nor those willing to buy their dream stone regardless of price. We weren't sure what we like, and even less sure about which could be in the running. We were also shopping for fabricator, so pricing via fabricator isn't helpful. The couple fabricators we talked to, wanted us to identify our granite first before pricing it. We can see how that works for them, but it's just not our style.
Then we decided to pay Deluxe Granite a visit.
The moment we walked in, we noted the tasteful selection of the granite they stock. They don't have an overwhelming selection but they stock the cool ones. Within minutes of browsing, Nick came marching out to greet us, which was an unexpected and pleasant change from needing to hunt down someone for assistance at the other stores. We were at the confused shopping stage. Nonetheless, Nick was courteous to supply us any information/pricing about any slabs we asked, right off the bat. He said they could also bring in any kind of granite from various suppliers if they don't stock what we are looking for. And this is the coolest part: for the slabs they stock, they would sell them by the half slab. That makes a huge difference to us, because our little kitchen is tricky to fit into a single slab, but buying two slabs to get the wriggling space for templating is too wasteful and expensive. Also for the record, the prices he quoted for the slabs we asked, are very competitive. They are very open in their pricing, giving us a very good idea of costs for labor and material.
We visited Deluxe Granite two more times before finalizing our order (but that's our own indecisiveness). The second time, we were greeted by Rene, who is equally courteous, if not more. She gave us a detailed quote on paper right then. The third visit, we put in the order with Nick. After that things went pretty fast, although there were a few hiccups.
Nick had to reschedule the templating because the network his templating system uses, was down. But he made it up the very next day. One of their selling point is the technology they have that allows them to photograph the exact slab and give customers the visualization of their countertop with different placement of template, before actually cutting the stone. It's our luck that the system wasn't working and they could not photograph our slabs. But Rene did give us a digital view using picture of a similar slab just so that we can get an idea, and we also talked to her in person in front of the actual slab and ended up with a pretty good idea how things will look. We didn't feel that we miss much since we wouldn't get that with other fabricators anyway, although it would have been cool to see the digital visualization of our actual/eventual countertop before it's cut :)
We ended up replacing our vanity tops too because of the extra material available from the 1.5 slabs we have to purchase for the kitchen. Our old vanity top was tiled. The tops were removed by our contractors after Nick finished templating. Our contractor went ahead to repair the wall after removal. Unfortunately, the extra mudding from the wall repair interfered with installation for one of the vanity top that is wedged between two walls. The installers dealt with the situation as graciously as they can, given the frustrating situation.
There is another thing, when we were concerned about using the 3cm granite for the vanity backsplash, Nick suggested thinning out the pieces to 2cm. At installation, the installer told us the type of granite we picked could not be thinned, the material just flaked off. Nonetheless, they cut the pieces for the backsplash anyway for us to decide if we want them and adjusted the invoice accordingly.
After the installation, we noticed the countertop on our island is not symmetric. Being busy with a ton other things, and assuming the installers must know what they were doing, it took us a month before we finally email Nick and Rene about it. Turned out there is a misunderstanding between templating and installation. The email exchanges occurred over a weekend, and the following Monday morning, we visited the store. We were greeted by Sharon, who is also very nice. Rene was arriving right when we were leaving the store. It must have taken us less than 10 minutes to get to work from there. Almost the moment we got into work, Rene called. She was sending the installer back out the very same day to re-center the island top. Talking about customer service! read more